Casey on board w/ small ball philosophy of NBA Final

[Uncle_Si]

http://www.thestar.com/sports/raptor...o%2FAQAIoTjcgj

“I would love to be stubborn and just try to have (Valanciunas) guard a smaller, quicker centre when a team goes small, but it’s difficult to do now in this stage of his career. Maybe someday he’ll get there, but he’s not there yet,” Casey said. “The day of the centres has gone by.”

This!

The game has changed people. The NBA has become a guards league and i feel like this is just the beginning. This Warriors/Cavs series will take the "small ball" philosophy to ANOTHER LEVEL. I think this series will change the NBA forever. I mean, these are the 2 best teams in the NBA right now. I think we'll see more small ball teams teams in the future.

This is why I proposed trading JV now in another thread. You can still get massive value for him right now and won't have to make a decision on extending him. JV just isn't agile enough and doesn't have the range to fit in with the direction the NBA is going.

The worst part is that JV was a bouncy energetic highly mobile big before the Raptors made him put on 25lbs of muscle. Which just led me to an even worse part, CASEY MADE HIM GAIN THE SIZE!!!! Now he's saying JV doesn't fit in the direction the NBA is going???

What a fcking disaster, hopefully JV can recover or get used to his added size and get some agility back. Not promising when your center needs to taking running lessons though...

[JWash]

Yeah small ball is dead yet the Spurs JUST won the title a year ago with a not-so-mobile Tim Duncan playing the center spot.

Nonsense. There are multiple ways to win.

[JWash]

Yeah, JJ's lack of range isn't ideal, but in terms of our current/recent roster, playing him at the 4 would be most coaches design of "small ball".

Playing JJ at the 4 (or even 5) would only create significant issues for opposing bigs IF we actually pushed the ball in transition and played at a high pace. As is, JJs man can easily sag into the lane. JJ needs to keep moving to put any pressure on his man and our offence doesn't have much (if any) off-ball movement.

Harris certainly seems to fit the mold.

Still clueless as to why we aren't trying to be top 5 in the league in pace. We have guys who would thrive in transition (Lowry and Ross with pull-up trailing threes, Ross with dunks, DeRozan is a great finisher in transition, Amir and JV run the floor very effectively, Lou Williams is a speed demon, etc).

Yet for some reason we're trying to play early 2000s iso-basketball where every single one of our guards is viewed as a TMac who can waste an entire possession dribbling the ball around looking for a score. It makes me want to throw up.

[Jangles]

Still clueless as to why we aren't trying to be top 5 in the league in pace.

Are you so eager in having the worst defence in the league?

[golden]

If this is the case, just how incompetent is the Raptors organization? We draft a mobile 20 year old centre 4 years ago and then tell him to bulk up. Then his HC pulls this crap on him.

And we made Gay bulk up quickly and now Bruno. That's a pretty huge organizational decision when you start changing a player's core physical attributes, like quickness and explosiveness. The goal is to gain strength without losing speed. Some guys can be "wiry strong" without getting bulky or slow - Tayshaun Prince, for example.

[JimiCliff]

http://www.thestar.com/sports/raptor...o%2FAQAIoTjcgj

“I would love to be stubborn and just try to have (Valanciunas) guard a smaller, quicker centre when a team goes small, but it’s difficult to do now in this stage of his career. Maybe someday he’ll get there, but he’s not there yet,” Casey said. “The day of the centres has gone by.”

This!

The game has changed people. The NBA has become a guards league and i feel like this is just the beginning. This Warriors/Cavs series will take the "small ball" philosophy to ANOTHER LEVEL. I think this series will change the NBA forever. I mean, these are the 2 best teams in the NBA right now. I think we'll see more small ball teams teams in the future.

Sorry, but this is horseshit. Casey would pull JV to go small regardless of whether he was matching up with a smaller quicker centre. Just another case of Casey throwing JV under the bus, which for, whatever reason, he loves to do.

And Dwane, small ball isn't small ball without shooting and passing. That's the whole point. I'd love, just once, for him to throw one of his guards under the bus, to even things out a little. "We're going to have problems being an effective small ball team until our shooting guard can consistently hit the 3."

[JimiCliff]

And, again, he's directly contradicting what Masai said at the exit interviews. Interesting to see how this plays out.

[Axel]

Are you so eager in having the worst defence in the league?

We were 25th this season. Not much difference at this point.

[mcHAPPY]

Sorry, but this is horseshit. Casey would pull JV to go small regardless of whether he was matching up with a smaller quicker centre. Just another case of Casey throwing JV under the bus, which for, whatever reason, he loves to do.

And Dwane, small ball isn't small ball without shooting and passing. That's the whole point. I'd love, just once, for him to throw one of his guards under the bus, to even things out a little. "We're going to have problems being an effective small ball team until our shooting guard can consistently hit the 3."

He misses the most crucial points it seems.

[Axel]

Casey's small-ball as demonstrated in the playoff line-up combinations most used:

                                                                    

                                                                    

Rk                                                      Lineup    MP

1            D. DeRozan A. Johnson K. Lowry T. Ross J. Valanciunas 38:07

2         D. DeRozan T. Hansbrough K. Lowry T. Ross J. Valanciunas 21:37

3        D. DeRozan A. Johnson P. Patterson G. Vasquez L. Williams 21:02

4          A. Johnson K. Lowry P. Patterson G. Vasquez L. Williams 13:07

5              D. DeRozan A. Johnson K. Lowry P. Patterson T. Ross 10:11

6       T. Hansbrough K. Lowry P. Patterson G. Vasquez L. Williams  9:54

7    D. DeRozan P. Patterson J. Valanciunas G. Vasquez L. Williams  9:07

8          D. DeRozan A. Johnson K. Lowry P. Patterson L. Williams  6:17

9      K. Lowry P. Patterson J. Valanciunas G. Vasquez L. Williams  5:31

10       T. Hansbrough P. Patterson T. Ross G. Vasquez L. Williams  5:01

Vasquez at the 3 with KL and Lou ......

[The Great One]

This.

Put a legit contending team on this roster with JV at center, and let's see somebody try to defend a 7 foot low-post scoring big with a 6'7 SF, when there are a ton of other (possibly even more lethal) weapons around him.

The Warriors also have not won the title yet. Cleveland in 7.

Imagine JV guarding Draymond Green? yikes.

If JV was playing in this Warriors/Cavs series. Do you think he would get any playing time? i honestly doubt it. He probably would get benched as well. I mean, he's not that much better than Mozgov and Mozgov got benched the other night. Mozgov is actually more mobile, a little bit quicker and IMO a better defender than JV.

[The Great One]

And Raps fans needs to be more realistic when it comes to JV. Ask yourself, is he really that much better than Mozgov? RIGHT NOW they're equal.

[JimiCliff]

And Raps fans needs to be more realistic when it comes to JV. Ask yourself, is he really that much better than Mozgov? RIGHT NOW they're equal.

Being realistic is one thing. Claiming that the traditional centre is finished is another. Tell that to the team that's going to sign Marc Gasol for $100 million + this summer, and then, barring injury, win near to 60 games with him for the foreseeable future.

[Mediumcore]

Guys, I think you have to be able to generalize comments and not hang on each word like it's written in stone.

The playoffs is a great example of the trend the NBA is following. Did anyone get a chance to watch the last game between Memphis and Golden State? It was a great example of why you can't put traditional bigs on the floor against a team that plays small ball at a high level. You just can't keep up with the pace.

A lot of the questions fans have been asking of why Casey plays certain line ups this season are being answered in these finals, but the hate for Casey is not allowing anyone to see those answers.

[slaw]

Well, except for a few things.

First, Ezeli and Bogut played ~38 mpg between them against the Rockets. Why? Cause GSW had to match up with Howard. They also played ~30 MPG against Memphis. So, it's not like GSW is small all the time and maybe they don't get by Memphis or Houston without those guys. They aren't playing much against Cleveland because the Cavs, despite have good frountcourt players, don't have a big that can distort the game and really hurt the Warriors for playing small.

Second, it's not about size but about talent. GSW plays small ball cause they have a bunch of really, really good players who happen to be short(er). Memphis has had great success running with two bigs cause those guys are really, really good players.

Toronto's problem (well one of them) isn't that they don't go small enough, it's that the Raptors don't have enough good players. You can roll with small or big lineups but when you're playing 4 on 5 out there with poor defenders like Ross, Vasquez and Williams and Bad Lowry, you can't beat anyone, big or small.